Things my Characters are Wearing with the Competitor’s Tabard (2016)

Eight years ago, the Summer Olympics were in Beijing, and Blizzard commemorated the event with the Competitor’s Tabard, an award for participating in any Battleground, win or lose. I got one for Kamalia, but not for any of my other characters who existed at that time (one year after I began playing).

Four years ago, the Summer Olympics were in London, and I created a set of Transmogrification kit ideas to go with the Competitor’s Tabard.

This year, the Summer Olympics are in Rio de Janeiro, and, thanks to the new Appearances system, I can have characters actually wearing Competitor’s Tabard outfits in-game!

Sleek Sprinter

Regal Armor, Serenity Belt, Shimmering Trousers, Riding Gloves* + Earthmender’s Bracer of Shattering, Sage’s Boots, Competitor’s Tabard, Helcular’s Other Rod or Torch of Austen + Tears of Heaven
I originally designed this outfit with the Swoop-Tail Shoulders and Sage’s Trousers. I was very well-pleased by how the green on top, red in the middle, blue on the bottom pattern of colors mimicked the pattern of the colors of the rings on the tabard. Now that we can hide shoulders, however, it seemed most appropriate to leave them off, so I shifted the green color to the trousers and the blue color to the shoes.
For the staff version, I chose a plain, straight staff to suggest a vaulting pole.
For the wand-and-off-hand version, of course she had to be running the Torch! I chose this flask off-hand to represent the water that would be carried by a distance/endurance runner.

On a whim, I decided to make the outfits for the other armor types with Alliance characters as well — meaning my low-level Dwarves. Thus, these outfits are rather different from the ideas I presented in my Competitor’s Tabard post four years ago.

Nimbletoes

Plainstalker Tunic*, Pilfered Kaldorei Belt, Bluegill Breeches*, Oilrag Handwraps*, Padded Running Shoes, Competitor’s Tabard, Bangalash’s Claw
Karolynne is level 22, so I didn’t have very many options for this leather kit. I started with the pale golden color of the pants (which I got from a Salvage Crate), then looked for other relatively light-colored brown items. It seemed appropriate to hide the shoulders for this outfit. Given their name, I couldn’t pass up this pair of boots!
How can this character be using so many items that are no longer available for this outfit? Thank the account-wide nature of the Appearances collection! I’m a bit sorry about that, as it will make the kit harder to replicate (especially for low-level characters). For high-level characters, I’d probably use the Marshseeker Gloves instead anyway.

Glittering Prize

Glimmering Mail Pauldrons & Girdle, Lambent Scale Breastplate & Legguards, Mail Combat Gauntlets & Boots, Competitor’s Tabard, Thun’grim’s Mace*, Glyphed Buckler
At level 30, Kjerstin was able to use the chestpiece & leggings from my original Competitor’s Tabard mail designs, but she had to choose different gloves & boots. Although the cloth and leather kits looked complete without shoulders, I felt like the heavier appearance of the mail items was more balanced with shoulders included.
This mace was one of the possible rewards from a pre-Cataclysm low-level Horde Warrior questchain.

Royal Champion

Princess Poobah’s Tiara, Mantle of the Horusath, Leonine Breastplate, Replica Belt of Valor, Starcaller’s Plated Legguards, Judicator’s Gauntlets, Slime Kickers, Competitor’s Tabard, Royal Mallet
Maybe it was her hairstyle that made me feel like Kyraleia (level 63) needed a headband with her Competitor’s Tabard kit when none of the other kits did. Again, I felt like the heavy plate items didn’t look quite right without shoulders.
Without the tabard, I’ve had this sort of kit for a Paladin in the back of my mind for quite a long time.

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the Mages’ Council

After a few days, the Underpowered Death Knight reported that she had collected twelve different pamphlets from the Doomsayers. It had taken her that long to be sure that she’d gotten them all, as after she’d gotten a handful, she started to get duplicates, but there didn’t seem to be any more than that. She gave them to Kaelinda to analyze. Flicking through the tattered, stained, crumpled, blackened, worn, damp, scrawled, scribbled, odorous, ominous, demonic, prophetic pile, Kaelinda quickly concluded that advice from other expert opinions would be valuable. She invited her Mage friends to study the pamphlets with her.

“The things that Kael’thas’ followers said about their plan to bring Kil’jaeden through the Sunwell,” Kaelinda said, “sounded a lot like this. There wasn’t actual death in that transformation, but the rest of it is more or less the same.”

“This drivel,” Kaprikka scowled, “is distressingly similar to the propaganda that Socrethar used to seduce the Sargerei.”

“I wasn’t there during the War of the Ancients,” Keriluna mused, “I was born a few decades afterward. My parents didn’t like to talk about that time, but when they thought I was old enough, they told me about it. These words… they are just like my parents’ memories.”

“Oh, I think I know what this one’s talkin’ about!” exclaimed Khrissalys. “Did yeh hear about how King Magni got turned into diamond when he went to commune with the earth just before the Cataclysm? Well, he woke up and I saw him with my own eyes walkin’ out of Ironforge.”

(the other two prophecies reference the second and fourth Legion comics)

Kaoling shook her head sadly. “The evaporation of the mists was enough of a shock, and then Pandaria was devastated by the escape of the great Sha, and especially the destruction of the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. I think there are many Pandaren who feel like their lives were turned upside down who would be susceptible to this message. Those who were severely afflicted by the great Sha might be even more so.”

“There are many who are unhappy with the current state of our governments,” Kymberlea observed, “Those who ask, where is Lorna? Where is Tess? Where is Calia? It is bad enough that these people are… reluctant to fight in the normal conflicts of our nations. It is worse to think that those sympathies could be used to persuade them to turn traitor to our world itself.”

“Why,” Kenosha muttered disgustedly, “why are my people so stupid? After all that we have suffered because of our bloodlust in the past, why would they think that this is the most honorable way to deal with this threat?”

“Most of my family belongs to a sect of the Church of the Holy Light that has as one of its tenets being prepared for future misfortune,” Kaylynda explained, “I bet that’s where this list originally came from.”

“I’m not sure that this is actually related,” Kivrinne said, “This looks to me like a left-over Twilight’s Hammer flyer from before the Cataclysm. That, or poetry by a high level cleric of the Forgotten Shadow. I hear that priests who turn their backs on the Light are going not just into the Shadow, but all the way into the Void now.”

“Dem Darkmoon carnies are pretty clever,” said Kikimaia, “I wouldn’t trust just a suit, though. I’d feel bettah if it had a voodoo charm ta strenthen da illusion, too.”

“What a scam!” hooted Kermione. “We should put out some counter-pamphlets telling people not to trust this at all. Gallywix’ll just take your life savings and enslave you. Been there, done that!… Didn’t get a T-shirt, though… hmm, maybe I oughtta suggest the idea to Boss Mida.”

“Only two air fresheners?” said Kelilla, “They really think a demon invasion would be over that soon? But what’s more worrying is that they aren’t including any Trogg repellent.”

“Still, if there are folks trying to make gold off of this” — the Gnome waved her hands to encompass the pamphlets held by the Goblin and the Troll — “then this kind of stuff must have been going around for awhile already.”

Kaylynda shook her head in astonishment. “Just what has been going on on Azeroth while we were all away on Draenor…?” Her eyes widened and she buried her face in her hands. “Kairoz, you blithering idiot! Whatever you thought you were doing when you brought Garrosh to Draenor, you’ve gotten us into way more trouble than you were planning for!”

“You mean –” began Kaelinda, “Oh! Remember what the Black Prince said? What he showed us?”

All around the table, heads nodded.

“That is what this is all about.”

“You know,” Kaylynda said after a moment, “tomorrow is Tuesday. New and strange things always seem to happen on Tuesdays. Kaelinda, you had better tell your Death Knight friend to continue keeping an eye on these Doomsayers, just in case they change their behavior somehow tomorrow…”

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Raven’s Apprentice

The Argent Skullcap, Shoulderwraps of the Enthralled, Necrology Robes, Sly Mojo Sash, Cloudscorcher Handwraps, Felcast Sandals, Magician Staff
I have wanted this robe for my Warlock for ages but thought I would never be able to get because it has a ridiculously low drop rate. But then one day my Alliance Mage found it on the AH, and, thanks to her Warlords Garrison gold income, she could even afford to buy it. So, naturally, she needed a kit for it right away. My Warlock will get to use this robe when the account-wide Wardrobe goes live in Legion.
Somehow this kit feels like it would be great for a Shadow Priest, or one of the Raven Priests at New Hearthglen. But Kaylynda is a Mage… and, oh, hey, these are kind of the same colors as Medivh’s robes, and he does the raven thing, too!
I’ve always though it interesting that Medivh uses a modified Night Elf model rather than a Human model. Nowadays, he’d probably get his own completely unique model.

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putting the SELFIE camera to good use

Several months into Warlords, I’ve finally gotten around to updating my Characters page with new portraits showing how my characters look with the new models!

The SELFIE camera proved useful for getting good facial close-up screencaps to use for this project, as I’d hoped it would. Most of the Tauren expressions are pretty silly, but there are one or two that are cute if you catch them at just the right moment. Alas, that cute, flirty expression turned into a rather… dazed expression when I reduced the new portraits to the 100 x 100 size I use for my Characters page. I still think it’s better than the serious DMV mug shot expression, though. You can’t see the color of their eyes at the small size, either. I should remember to use the camera more often when I’m bopping around the world and when I’m doing Transmogrification photo shoots… and maybe get around to making those individual Character Profile posts/pages with all their favorite mounts and titles and jukebox tracks and suchlike, and links to artwork and stories featuring that particular character.

I’ve also taken the opportunity to update my blog banner. When I last updated it, near the end of Mists, I displayed my One-of-Each-Class set of alts, because I was so pleased with myself for having finally accomplished the goal, which I’d had since I first started playing this game, of getting a character of every class to the level cap.

I won’t be doing that again, though, because I just don’t have the time any more to play classes whose fantasy doesn’t really interest me. I probably won’t play a Demon Hunter much farther than just getting through their starting zone experience, and I’m currently thinking that I may not level the Rogue or the Warlock at all in Legion. Furthermore, making the row of icons along the bottom of the banner small enough to add another one for the Demon Hunter would have made them so small that they’d barely have been readable. Instead, I’ve displayed the alts that I actually intend to play going forward into Legion. I’ve reorganized the listing priority on the Characters page in a similar fashion.

It’s funny how my interest in particular alts comes and goes. I thought I was done with my Human Mage at the end of Mists. Then I decided that if I couldn’t have a High Elf Mage, a Human Mage would be the next-best thing, and so I renamed my Human Mage and made her look as much like my Blood Elf Mage as I could. I wasn’t quite satisfied with that, though. I kept iterating her appearance until I was happy with it, and it turns out that what I really wanted my Human Mage to be is as close to an avatar of my RL self as I could manage (oddly enough, the new model face that I ultimately chose as the one that seemed the closest to just right is one that I probably wouldn’t have chosen in the old model version). As I updated my Characters page, I considered putting my Human Mage’s race down as “High Elf”, signifying that even though the model she uses is Human, RP-wise she is really a Quel’dorei, but that just didn’t feel quite right anymore because I’ve gotten to a happy place with that character as a Human. If by some miracle the Alliance were to get playable High Elves, I’d most likely just create a new character instead of race-changing my Human Mage. I might still faction-change my Blood Elf Mage, though, and create (and perhaps even boost) that new character as a Blood Elf Mage, because I think I’d still want a Blood Elf Mage, as well as a High Elf Mage…

I did, however, put down RP-inspired race descriptions for some of my Tauren characters, indicating customization options (such as Grimtotem war paint) that I would take if they were available. I already knew which characters were of the Taunka and Yaungol sub-races; with Legion introducing a new Taurenoid sub-race, I looked through my other characters to decide which one to retcon as a Highmountain Tauren. I chose my secondary Druid, whose RP description already establishes her as having features that aren’t actually available in the current character customization options. Perhaps curly coat is a trait that was unique to the tribes that lived in the Highmountain region of Pangaea-Kalimdor, or, like the moose horns or the characteristics that distinguish Taunka and Yaungol from Shu’halo, a trait that developed among them after the Sundering split them off from the rest of the Tauren lineages.

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everybody gets new clothes

Well, not everybody-everybody, but all my level 90+ characters who are currently on Draenor, at any rate. As I was going through my wardrobe pages the other day, it was clear that it had been far too long since I’d updated — several of the pages were still showing my end-of-Mists outfits, while the characters themselves were loafing around their Garrisons in sloppy, mismatched combinations of Frostfire Ridge quest reward gear and Tormented token gear that their followers had brought them. Even if nobody will see them in-game but me, it was high time for some new Transmogrification kits.

Scorched Earth


Pauldrons of the Deafening Gale, Warsong Wraps, Netherstrike Belt, Valorous Earthshatter Legguards (T7), Grips of Nature’s Wrath, Thunder Bluff Doublet, Gutgore Ripper, Viryx’s Indomitable Bulwark (H)
This High Arakkoa shield design is pretty cool, but I don’t know if I’ll keep it beyond the end of this expansion. So I figured I’d better make a kit with it for running around in Tanaan. The dagger was an obvious match, but Kamalia didn’t really have much else that was orange in her wardrobe. Poking around in MogIt, I found this combination of chestpiece and kilt, which is so nice that I feel like I’ve seen it somewhere else before… but where or when, I can’t recall. I had this kilt during Wrath, but I sold it at the end of the expansion to free up some bag space, so I had to re-collect it.

In order of seniority…

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red ringlets reverie

As we look forward to another year, here is one small and silly little thing that I wish would happen, one of these Patches, that would make me very very happy indeed:

I want more ringlets!

I love the ringlets of the Draenei “Jeweled Band” hairstyle.

I love the ringlets of the Goblin “Elegant” hairstyle.

I would love, love to see the Barbershop make these hairstyles available to more races.

Wouldn’t those long Dranei ringlets look just lovely on a Blood Elf, Human, or Night Elf?

And wouldn’t those fat Goblin curls look simply adorable on a Gnome, Dwarf, or Pandaren?

I’d love to see curly coat Tauren, too —

— but I realize that that’s far, far less likely to happen than getting ringlets for the more Human-like races.

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farewell, Kinevra; hail, Kaylynda

I’d decided that my Human Mage, Kinevra, was DONE. That she’d had her day, that I wasn’t going to take her to Draenor. So I didn’t do the pre-launch Blasted Lands questline with her.

Kinevra had, however, accumulated quite a few things that I dearly wished I had on my Blood Elf Mage instead — the Theramore Arcanist’s Hat from the pre-Mists Theramore scenario “event”, T13 robe & shoulders from playing with the OLRG, Burning Embers for the first step of the Tarecgosa quest chain — so I considered faction-transferring her over to be a Blood Elf. When I looked through her inventory, though, I found that she had some Alliance-specific items that I didn’t want to lose.

Then I thought about how my Blood Elf Mage has a serious case of faction envy and would Blink over to the Alliance just as fast as she could if High Elves ever became a playable race for the Alliance. Seeing the Alliance’s Mage Tower when I finally got to Ashran with my Draenei Mage last week, I knew that my Blood Elf Mage would want to have that structure, not the Horde’s Spirit Lodge, in her Garrison.

The character of Kinevra, the wide-eyed, freckle-faced teenager from Theramore with a hopeless crush on Anduin Wrynn, is DONE — but I decided that I’m not DONE with playing a Human Mage. With a change of name and face, my level 90 Human Mage is now Kaylynda, Kaelinda’s Alliance doppelganger/surrogate.
And she will be going to Draenor.

Mirror Magi


Lightning Infused Mantle, Robe of the Magi, Wizard’s Belt/High Councillor’s Sash, Cloudscorcher Handwraps, Cushy Cenarion Walkers/Slippers of Serenity, Staff of the Arcane Path/Staff of the Royal Wizard

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